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At the Waterworks |
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The Magic School Bus At the Waterworks is the first book in the original book series. It was published in the United States on July 24, 1986.
This book was the debut of The Magic School Bus franchise.
Scholastic.com Description[]
"Ms. Frizzle drives the Magic School Bus into a cloud where the children shrink to the size of water droplets and follow the course of water through the city's waterworks system."[1]
Plot[]
The kids are unhappy and unlucky to know that they got Ms. Frizzle as their teacher, whom they call "the strangest teacher in school". They dislike her because of the assignments she gives them, and the fact that they have to read five books a week. Ms. Frizzle tells the kids that they have a field trip to the waterworks the following day, and they have to get ready for it by providing ten interesting facts about water.
The kids head outside to the Magic School Bus, which, to their surprise, Ms. Frizzle is driving. As the students ride along, they enter a tunnel and find themselves in scuba gear. The Bus soon rises into the air and parks itself on a cloud. Ms. Frizzle orders the students out of the Bus, threatening them with extra homework if they don't exit.
The kids and Ms. Frizzle shrink and find themselves inside their own raindrops as they rain into a river and get washed downstream, where they end up in a reservoir supply. They travel through the water supply system, learning what steps are taken to clean, filter, and sanitize the water as it flows into the town's water mains. Eventually, they get splashed out of the sink in the girls' bathroom at school (where a seventh grader, Tiffany, gets shocked), where they get back to normal size.
Back in the classroom, Ms. Frizzle notices Arnold drawing a picture of a child wearing scuba goggles inside a raindrop. Somehow, Ms. Frizzle seems to not remember anything about the field trip she had, asking Arnold, "Where did you get all of these crazy ideas?" Later, the entire class paints a mural of the waterworks based on what it has learned.
At lunch, Amanda Jane notices the Bus at the parking lot. She wonders why it's still at the school even though it was parked at a cloud.
Publication history/Previous Versions[]
Trivia[]
- Regardless on this being the very first book of the series, this is also the first book that the Bus hasn't transformed into anything. The second time the Bus doesn't transform was in the third book, Inside The Human Body.
- In “Wet All Over,” the episode adaptation, the seventh-grader was given a name: Tiffany.
- Near the end of the book, Ms. Frizzle states that the class is going to learn about volcanoes next. That is, which references the next book Inside the Earth. And the said book is the second book in the original series books.
- On the original cover, the word "Waterworks" is colored blue and in all caps, rendered in the font of the 1986-1996 Magic School Bus logotype.
- On the 1997, 2004, 2006, and 2016 covers, the title of the book is in the And the Electric Field Trip font. Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen's credits appear on top of the MSB logo like in that book, without indicating which one wrote or illustrated it.
- The Bus's overhead sign has a picture of four water droplets on it on the cover, regardless of which edition of the book one is reading.
- On 21st-century publications, the 1997-2021 The Magic School Bus logo has white outlining on one cover, purple on another cover, and green on another cover.
- In the 1992 reprint of the book, over the Scholastic logo (which is on the bottom left) has a red circle with the Magic School Bus logo in it. And it reads: "DON'T MISS THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS TV SHOW! ON PBS, FALL 1994!".
- This is one of the five books to appear on the book promo in all seasons of the 90s series. The other four are Inside the Earth, Inside the Human Body, On the Ocean Floor, and In the Time of the Dinosaurs.
- At the end of the book, there are fun facts and warnings that serve as the basis for Producer segments. One example given is that children can't get smaller and enter raindrops. Another example is, once a school bus is left behind in a cloud, it can't suddenly appear in the school bus area (at the school) all on its own. (Obviously, someone may need to go back to the cloud and drive it home.)
- However, a mistake in one of the facts is that the mold that grows on bread is made up of unicellular (one-celled) plants. Mold is actually a fungus, and fungi and plants are from different kingdoms.
- Also, when a bus is left behind in a cloud, it would never have been held up in it. (That is, in addition to the fact that it can't appear in the school parking lot by itself.) Because a cloud, it is made of either bits of ice or tiny liquid droplets.
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